


Once There Was a Beautiful Witch

by whichstiel



Series: Season 12 Codas [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Regarding Dean, Season/Series 12, Spellbooks, episode coda, rowena keeps fighting, rowena's past, spn 12x11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 13:29:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9659441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichstiel/pseuds/whichstiel
Summary: It's hard to find clean water in the city. The barrel top brimming with rainwater has an oily sheen to it but Rowena tries to use the blade of her hand to push aside the oil, then scoops up the water anyway and does her best to wash. It's been a long, bloody trip to Ireland. The Men of Letters pursued her to the docks and one followed her onto the boat that took her away from England. She'd had to kill him in the end. Thinking of it, smelling his blood on her only clothes, churns her stomach. She may never eat again, knowing that another man's blood is on her hands. But he had made it clear: it was her life or his. Her hands shake.





	

“ _I'll tell you a story._

_Once a beautiful witch was run out of her homeland by the British Men of Letters. She sought refuge with a family of witches. All she wanted was a roof over her head and a_ _place_ _to work her magic. They threw her out like she was trash, like she wasn't up to snuff.”_

**THEN**

It's hard to find clean water in the city. The barrel top brimming with rainwater has an oily sheen to it but Rowena tries to use the blade of her hand to push aside the oil, then scoops up the water anyway and does her best to wash. It's been a long, bloody trip to Ireland. The Men of Letters pursued her to the docks and one followed her onto the boat that took her away from England. She'd had to kill him in the end. Thinking of it, smelling his blood on her only clothes, churns her stomach. She may never eat again, knowing that another man's blood is on her hands. But he had made it clear: it was her life or his. Her hands shake.

Everyone makes choices in life. Dwelling on the poor choices is the path to defeat, however. _You've got to move forward if you want to survive._ Rowena wants to survive.

Actually, she wants more than that. She has enough magic to eke out a small future for herself, a possibly quiet future in a cottage by the sea far away from murderous, self-righteous hunters. The kind of future you read about in books. It sounds lovely. It's a fantasy, though. The world is changing, moving away from magic, squeezing those who possess it, forcing them into the darker corners of the world or oblivion.

The Louglins keep a grand house in the city, a white columned wonder in a row of more modest townhomes. Rowena doesn't have money to study under them, but she thinks she can offer them something better. Her power, her spells... They are what is so incredibly rare in the magical world: unique. Surely their inventive nature will be enough. Surely _she_ is gift enough to barter.

She twists her hair into a knot as best as she can, using the water's reflection to tuck stray curls demurely against her temple. Then she approaches the Louglins' midnight blue door.

A maid opens the door, far cleaner than Rowena, and inquires about her presence in an accent far more cultured than Rowena's thick burr. She's shown to a small sitting room, clearly a secondary room away from the front room windows. Still, it's decadent in a way she has never had and Rowena sits with a nearly orgasmic thrill on the supple leather couch. Not even her father, with all his skill, ever made anything so lovely.

The sister, Catriona, swans into the room in a cloud of lavender. Her blond hair is piled thick on her head and she wears a flimsy gown that would scarcely last a week back home. “You've come to study magic,” she says. She underlays her statement with a hint of laughter and stands near the door with a sneer.

Rowena draws steel into her spine. “Yes.”

“And what do you have to offer?” the blond woman asks, examining her fingertips idly.

“I-- My magic. I can offer you original spells. Spells the like of which you've never seen before. Of my own invention.”

A man laughs from the doorway and both women turn to him. “Original magic? How refreshing.”

Catriona rolls her eyes at him and trails her gaze slowly from the tips of Rowena's boots to the curls piled atop her head. “I very much doubt your original spells would be of any use to us, my dear. And it's clear you can't afford our fees.” She sighs and turns. “I'll tell Mary to see you out.”

“What? Wait! Please.” Rowena stands and gathers magic into her palms. She's got to show them, prove herself, there's got to be something she can do. “My magic centers around life energies. I've done wonders with it already. Long life, destroying corrupt souls. I-- I-- Just let me show you, please.” Suddenly her fingers turn cold. Icy cold. The magic stutters in her palms, then dies.

Catriona sneers at her. “How dare you summon magic here. Trash,” she spits. “Get out of my house.”

“Please!” Rowena throws herself on the floor. This is her chance. She'll do anything to keep it – to learn more – to be safe. “You can have anything.” She looks at Catriona. She looks at Boyd. “Anything.”

In the end, Mary shows her out with a grim, satisfied smile dancing on her lips.

Boyd finds her the next day where she has holed up in yet another rat infested boarding house as she tries to plan her next move. He smiles at her casually in the privacy of her room and promises to talk to his sister. Rowena takes the delicately wired spectacles from his face, placing them to the side of the small lumpy bed. She'll show him her magic. She'll show him other things as well. Whatever she needs to do to prove herself.

He visits until she's spent nearly her last coin on boarding rooms and seconds from bakeries. And in the end it leads to nothing. Just like always.

Rowena leaves Ireland, her bones burning with rage.  


**NOW**

Rowena settles back in the taxi and pulls her phone from her bag, thumbing it on. Her photo roll is full of clean shots of the pages of the Black Grimoire. (There are a few of Dean as well, playing with animate butterflies pinned to a board, as open and guileless as a child.) She sighs and clutches the phone to her, the giddiness of possessing new spells momentarily causing her breath to stutter. Of course, she misses the book already. The smell of pages steeped in old magic is incomparable. Still magic is magic. Power is power.

She instructs the taxi to take her to her hotel, a place of casual luxury even in this modest American town. Rowena will hastily pack her bag, leave no traces. The Winchesters let her go, but there's no guarantee that they won't regret it and come after her later. You can't trust a hunter.

Rowena looks at her future with casual dread. The path is muddy, full of blood and power and pain. There's a spell in the Black Grimoire that promises oblivion – and not the quiet mortal fading cast on Dean. There's a spell that obliterates the soul so there is no eternal afterlife to suffer through. It will scatter her into the world. It will end her for good.

She draws herself up, steel in her spine. But not yet. She'll survive. She always has. She'll fight until the end and maybe, if the world doesn't break her in another hundred years, maybe she'll fight into the great beyond as well.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/whichstiel) and [Tumblr](http://whichstiel.tumblr.com/) @ whichstiel. You may also like the Supernatural recap and gif blog I co-write/curate, [Shirtless Sammy](https://shirtlesssammy.tumblr.com/).


End file.
